


Post Tenebras: Lux

by AubreySimone



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Angst, Bloodplay, D/s elements, Dark!Kagome, F/M, Knotting, Manipulative!Sesshomaru, Sadomasochism, Youkai!Kagome, forced mating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:40:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AubreySimone/pseuds/AubreySimone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are those who get what they want and those who get what they deserve, and in getting what he wants, Naraku unwittingly ensures that he'll get what he deserves. Kagome is going to be sure of that. A Dark!Kagome fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

* * *

  **Pre-Note:**  


_Please heed the warnings for this story - if the subject matter is something you don't want to read, then please don't do so. I'm not taking them lightly and neither should you. For those of you who are brave enough to keep reading, welcome to Post Tenebras: Lux, in which there is darkness, but also, eventually, light. I hope you enjoy. *bow*_

* * *

 [ **I** ]

**WARNINGS:** _Rape/Dubiously-Consensual Sex, Angst, Dark!Kagome, Manipulative!Sesshomaru, Forced Bondage, Forced Mating, Sadomasochism_

* * *

When Kagome wakes up, she realizes three things in rapid, startling succession: that she isn't where she's supposed to be, that she doesn't remember where she _is_ , and that she _hurts_ from her the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.

Unbidden, a groan tumbles from her lips, and when something cool splashes against her mouth, she can't help shoving aside the voice that whispers _poison_ and embracing the one that shouts _water_ , because the liquid is like a godsend, soaking her parched gums and dry throat.

In her hurry—dear gods has she _ever_ been so thirsty?—she chokes, and the blessed water is pulled away in the same instant that she forces her head to the side and coughs. Coughing turns to hacking turns to heaving turns to vomiting, and even though part of her is raging at the loss of the water, another part is horrified at what she sees splattered across the floor when she finally forces her eyes open: blood and a black, bubbling, viscous concoction that hisses against the floor.

"It's begun," someone says, and Kagome whirls despite the protesting ache of her muscles, because she's heard that sort of sick glee before, the kind that sounds like oil and tar and tastes like what pure darkness must taste like, sour and sharp in the back of her throat. The woman who'd spoken wears priestess' garb, but both her hakama and haori are a strange, muddy red, like dried blood against white fabric. There's a manic light in her dark eyes that makes Kagome's stomach flip, and she grins as Kagome takes her in, gaunt face and sallow skin making her look sickly in the torchlight. "Are you ready for your transformation?"

Kagome doesn't get to respond, because the woman reaches down and pulls her to her feet with a strength that the miko wouldn't have thought she possessed. It hurts immediately and everywhere all at once, but the woman, bony fingers closed tight around Kagome's upper arm, ignores the cry that rips itself out of her throat; knees buckling, Kagome is dragged from the room.

She immediately recognizes the dismal conditions of a dungeon, stone walls and uneven floor shining wetly in the light that spills from the torches. She can hear water, somewhere, and as the woman continues to drag her through the halls, the sound of tortured screams send chills up and down her spine.

It doesn't take long for the woman to herd her to their destination—a large round cavern that's only occupied by one other person, chained near the far wall. The sight of him—he's painfully, embarrassingly naked—all silver hair and lean, bloodied flesh, sends a jolt of fear through Kagome's gut, but some part of her recognizes not Inuyasha's thick hair, but Sesshomaru's ankle length tresses.

And then the fear deepens to panic, because if Sesshomaru has been captured, where does that leave the rest of the group? They've all been traveling together for the better part of a year, after all, and no matter Inuyasha's brute strength, they all knew that Sesshomaru was their true weapon, their strategic advantage against anything and everything Naraku threw at them.

_But...but if he's **here** , then…?_

She doesn't get to think any more on the subject—her captor tosses her bodily into the room, sneers when Kagome turns to glare at her, and then shuts the door with a slam and a cackle. Kagome swallows and gingerly picks herself up off of the floor, her legs still trembling but her determination holding firm.

Sesshomaru doesn't react until she's within three feet of him, but when he looks up, the light in his eyes isn't angry or embarrassed or even coldly blank, but resigned, as though he's given up. She's hardly had time to decide that she doesn't like it before he's looking away again, his hair falling in a dirty swath across his blood-streaked chest. She swallows again, and her throat clicks.

"I - Sesshomaru, I'm sorry," she whispers, and she doesn't even know what she's apologizing for, but she can't take it back now that she's said it, so she steps closer, adamantly ignoring his state of undress in favor of examining his bonds.

He's only held by his arms, the thick manacles that are closed just above the joint of his elbows shining dully in the dim light. The chain that connects the two manacles is attached to the floor, just long enough, it seems, for Sesshomaru to stand upright. He can't take more than a step away from where he is now, and Kagome's heart clenches; she knows he must feel horrible, worse than a pet dog, stuck in one place when he's spent so much of his life in constant motion.

"Your pity is unnecessary, girl."

She jumps at the sound of his voice, hoarser than she remembers it, and turns to see him watching her from the corner of his eye, his bangs hanging dirtily across his forehead. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, I - "

And then words and thought and every sensation except that of acute, bone-wrenching _pain_ fade into nothing.

She can't breathe around the agony, but if she could get enough air in her lungs, she knows that she would be screaming her throat raw; the pain feels like someone's dragging broken glass along her nerves, like someone has replaced her blood with magma or acid or pure undiluted poison.

It feels like it lasts forever, and when it ends she's on the ground, sweating forehead pressed into the cool stone. She can feel Sesshomaru's eyes on her, and when she manages to roll onto her side, his jaw is clenching and his face is as open as she's ever seen it—there's resolution in the taut line of his mouth; resolution and something that looks, surprisingly, like pain.

"Don't fight it," he says lowly, as simply as if he'd been advising her on the best archer's post in a mountain range, and she forces herself to process the words through the haze that's still clearing from her psyche.

She wants to ask what he means—why he seems to know what's happening and why she isn't supposed to fight it—but the pain is building again, closing first around her gut and then her lungs and then her throat and her head until she can't see past the violent haze of it, until she isn't sure whether there was a time when she _didn't_ hurt.

The episode is shorter this time, she thinks, and when she comes out of it, she isn't breathing quite as hard as the first time. Her reprieve, however, lasts only long enough for her to blink the tears out of her eyes, and then it strikes again, rolling over her like a tsunami.

This time, she does scream.

The next time, she vomits blood.

The time after that, she empties her stomach for the third time since she's been awake, and the black liquid burns her fingers when it splashes onto the stone.

Slowly, so painfully slowly, the fits pass, and instead of pain curling in her gut at random intervals, something else, something unidentifiable and foreign, sidles along her senses like a cat seeking affection. She draws in a breath, and then there's the taste of something tantalizing on the back of her tongue, like the remnants of her favorite dessert, just barely there but alluring all the same.

She turns her head, licks her lips, and Sesshomaru lowers himself to his knees as she stares at him, knowing that that taste—that utterly _addict_ ive flavor—is coming from _him_. She can see his throat bob as he swallows, and something about the motion, something about the utter vulnera _bility_ of it snaps her thoughts from languid to sharp in seconds. She blinks. Sesshomaru swallows again.

Although the pain has disappeared, that something else is still there, rolling around just out of reach, slick and seductive and oh so foreign. She can't feel her reiki any longer, not even when she reaches for it, and it's the loss of that that sends panic rushing into her throat; tightly, she asks, "What…? Sesshomaru, what happened, why can't I - "

"A ritual," he interrupts quietly, "meant to corrupt even the purest of souls." He pauses, waits until he's sure he has her attention, and says, "You are shadow youkai now, the darkest of our kind, and no longer the Shikon's priestess."

The blow is invisible but she feels it just as acutely as if she'd seen it coming. Her breath rushes out of her, and she sways forward before she can stop herself, catching her weight on her arms—arms, she notices now, covered in thin black lines that swirl and curl, entrancing, over her skin, dark enough to be visible even through the sleeves of her yukata. Her hair falls around her face, and if it's actually thicker and longer than it was before, Kagome decides to adamantly ignore that fact.

"Then," she croaks, throat working against the dryness of it, "then that means Naraku wins, doesn't it? If I can't - if I'm not a miko anymore, then…then he wins, right?"

The snarl that Sesshomaru lets loose sends a strange tingle skittering down her back, and she looks up in surprise, immediately caught in the fiery red-gold cast of his eyes. "I will _die_ before I allow such _filth_ to best me," he rumbles, fists clenching and chain rattling.

Kagome tries to remember to breathe—she's starting to taste that sweetness on the back of her tongue again, and firmly tells herself to pretend that the thrill tingling at the base of her spine _isn't_ arousal—and then dips her head forward. "I know, I'm sorry, I just...What are we going to do?"

Sesshomaru's face goes blank and the fire in his eyes dims until only ice is left. "I will do nothing."

"Then what can _I_ do?" Scooting closer, Kagome tucks her legs beneath her and sits across from him as though they haven't been captured by the enemy; as though she's explaining the workings of a car to him in one of his more curious moods. "You said that there was a ritual performed, right? Well how do I stop it? There must be _some_ way to disrupt it."

Slowly, Sesshomaru shakes his head. "It is too far progressed," he responds, nodding toward her arms. "Your only choice now is to complete it, as Naraku intends."

His voice drops lower and lower as he talks, until the last word is hardly more than a vibration through the air. Kagome twists her fingers. "And how do I finish it?"

He doesn't meet her eyes. "You will do what you must."

Kagome tries to catch his eye, but he stares at the wall to his left, hair hiding his face just as effectively as a solid wall would have. "Sesshomaru, what do you mean?"

She can hear the scrape of his claws against the floor when he curls his fists. "I," he says, so quietly that she knows he's only refraining from shouting through pure self-control, "am to be a final sacrifice."

Kagome instantly feels sick. "I have to…I'm supposed to _kill_ you?"

If he's annoyed with the squeak of her voice, he doesn't give any indication, and it's only because she's watching him so closely that she sees the slight slump of his shoulders when he shakes his head. "It is what they expect, but that is not what you will do." He says it so calmly, so nonchalantly, that she's surprised at the malice she sees in his eyes when he turns back to her. "You will take me as your mate, instead, and I will take you as mine, and our souls will be bound for the rest of our lifetimes."

 _And I **do not** want it,_ she hears, as loudly and as clearly as if he'd spoken the words. She shakes her head.

"I can't…I won't do that to you," she whispers. "You don't want a mate, I know you don't, much less one who used to be _human_ , I—"

"You _will_ ," he interrupts with a snarl, beautiful features twisting in unadulterated anger, "or we will _die_ here." She shakes her head again, and he lurches forward, chain rattling, his face just inches from her own. "You will do this, or you will spend the rest of your pathetic once-human life _wish_ ing you had." His upper lip curls. "You _will_ do this, or you will watch from the afterlife as Naraku slaughters every human in sight; you will do this, or your _friends_ "—he sneers the word, like it's bitter on his tongue—"will be be captured, and you know that the spider will torture them, don't you? He will break their bones and spill their blood; he will make them watch as he flays them alive; he will rape them and break them and—"

"Stop it!" She doesn't mean to yell, not at him, but once the words are out, she realizes that she's been holding them in for some time. "You can't - you can't expect me to _do_ this to you, Sesshomaru! I'll find some other way to—"

" _There **is**_ _no other way_!" Sesshomaru all but roars, and she scrambles instinctually away from him as he jerks toward her, fangs bared. She has never seen him so angry at anyone but Inuyasha; has never seen his face cycling through despair and pain and _fury_ the way it's doing now. "Unless you slaughter me," he grits out, and the tone of his voice tells her that he doesn't believe she would do it, "there is _nothing else_ than can be done."

Her heart is pounding, and that sensual otherness in her veins is sliding faster, pooling in her gut and the cradle of her hips and slipping down her spine and arms and legs. She swallows and ignores it, just for a little while longer.

"Can you…can you get free, at least? I—"

"Were I free," he interrupts, no longer looking at her, "or willing, the ritual would not be complete, and we would both perish."

_Then I'll have to…I'm going to…I have to **rape** him!_

She wretches and turns away, but nothing but bile burns at the back of her tongue no matter how heavily her stomach lurches. Wiping a shaking hand against her mouth, Kagome tries to rationalize.

 _If I do this, then maybe we can get free._ She doesn't know how long she's been here—she doesn't even remember being captured or having a ritual performed on her—but if she can do this…

"Then," she begins, peeking at him through her lashes, "afterwards...Can you get us out?"

"Yes." The unhesitating answer—and the utter certainty of it, the complete faith Sesshomaru has and has always had in his own abilities—settles at least a portion of her anxiety, and she inches back toward him, folding her legs underneath her and fiddling with the hem of the thin, tattered yukata she wears.

"And will you…forgive me?"

He looks away and doesn't answer, and Kagome nods to herself, ducking her head. She probably won't forgive herself either, not for a long while.

Time passes in silence, and the only reason Kagome knows that anything unsavory is about to happen is the way Sesshomaru slowly and steadily stiffens, and the way her arousal rocks higher and higher, the sweetly sharp taste of her reluctant companion growing thicker and thicker in her throat.

At some point, she looks up, and Sesshomaru is straining, quietly and fervently, away from her, turned and leaning as far away as he can. She doesn't know if he's consciously doing it, or if even he, always so poised, has lost his composure, but she feels instantly sorry for him and for herself. _Why **this** , of all things?_ she wonders, curling her hands against the urge to reach out and touch him as the darkness that has replaced her reiki swirls more insistently in her blood. _Why couldn't it be **me** sitting there?_

It's a strange thing, she thinks, to wish rape on herself, but once the thought passes through her head, she can't help but wish it really _was_ her in Sesshomaru's place. At least that way it wouldn't be so much of a violation—she could handle it then, maybe, because _this_? This was simply _wrong_ , that a youkai of Sesshomaru's stature was going to have his pride and power trod upon like dirt, treated like nothing more than an instrument for Naraku's amusement.

 _But_ , she realizes, shifting at the wetness that grows unbidden between her legs, _that's exactly what Naraku wants, isn't it_? He wants them broken beyond repair, so that he can enjoy their suffering. _Maybe he wants to come in while it's happening_ , she thinks, swallowing thickly. _Or maybe, when it's over, he's going to—_

"We have to do this fast," she whispers, and refuses to look at Sesshomaru even when he snaps his head up to look at her. "It would be just like him to come in, or send someone else in, thinking he's going to catch us broken and unprepared…" She sneaks a peek at the youkai from under her lashes, and her fingers twitch with the urge to reach for him; an urge she adamantly ignores and buries deep. "But we have to be ready—it'll be the only chance we have at getting out, won't it?"

Slowly, Sesshomaru nods, and as she watches, the stiff line of his shoulders settles into something that's less like revulsion and more like determination. "The Mate-Bond," he says quietly (she can hear the capitalization and can't help but to inwardly cringe at how utterly she's about to violate the sanctity of it), "will momentarily grant me the strength to overpower the enchantments on the chain—once it breaks, and someone opens the door, freeing ourselves will come easily."

She nods, and idly thinks that maybe this won't be so bad after all, because if Sesshomaru can still talk strategy, if his mind—he's scarily intelligent, she's found out, far smarter than her even with her education—can still weave through the gossamer squares of the world's chessboard, then he's going to find the best possible way of dealing with this.

They're _going_ to deal with this.

It's that thought that holds her over as the new power— _the_ _youki of a shadow youkai_ _,_ she thinks logically—begins to swell and roll, slowly clouding her thoughts and flooding through her body. The youki is thick in a way that her reiki never was, and it sparks beneath her skin the longer she ignores it, stretching itself through her in sensual tendrils. She can't help resisting the urges it whispers in her thoughts— _touch him,_ it rasps, _cut him, please him, **own** him_—because she doesn't _want_ this, Sesshomaru doesn't _want_ this, and—

She's trembling by the time she can't take it anymore, and when she screws her eyes shut, whimpering, against the arousal that pulses between her legs, Sesshomaru growls.

The sound doesn't help—the darkness _surges_ , and she feels like she's suffocating on pure oxygen; like she's drowning in reverse, and her skin comes _alive_ with heat and sensation; she jerks forward with a cry, stopping herself from touching the dog lord's bare thigh by sheer will alone.

"Stop resisting," Sesshomaru hisses, and the sweet sharpness of his scent—pine needles and lightning and smoke—floods into her mouth when he leans forward, putting his face directly in her line of sight. "We have agreed that this _must_ happen—will you not sacrifice as much as I in this? Will you be as much of a _coward_ as you were when you were human?"

She growls, and even though the sound is foreign in her ears, even though she thinks that she doesn't mean to make such a vicious noise, Sesshomaru seems satisfied.

"Then _do it_."

And so she does.

She clambers into his lap, unmindful of the claws that curve delicately at the tips of her fingers and the way they scratch his skin. She hisses when his flesh makes contact with hers—his youki feels different than hers, deeper and heavier and just a little rougher—and then catches her breath at the first brush of his cock against her wetness.

He's hard ( _it's just a physical reaction_ , her rational mind tells her, _he doesn't want this anymore than I do, but his body can't help it anymore than mine can_ ), thick and long and heavy, and she rolls her hips against the smoothness of his shaft, feeling the coarse curls of his pubic hair catch against her own trimmed thatch. She doesn't know if he'll fit ( _he'll fit perfectly_ , the darkness purrs, _and it'll hurt beautifully, simply **beautifully**_ ), but she reaches down and positions him nonetheless, her free hand digging into the shoulder of his recently returned left arm.

Sesshomaru's claws scritch against her thighs when she forces just the head of him inside, and the pain is instant and sharp although it only registers as pain for a short time—it transforms to bliss just as he snarls his impatience with her, and when he leans forward to scrape his teeth against the bone of her collar, she shudders and sinks down.

Remembering to breathe, Kagome takes him in one thrust, and determination twines with pleasure and pain as he pulses softly inside of her, his heart pounding just as frantically as her own.

"Move," he commands, red snaking into his stone-hard eyes, and when she doesn't, he snarls and curls his fingers until his claws break the skin of her thighs. " _Move_ , damn you!"

She does, and she lets his anger spur her on, lets the scent of her virgin's blood and their mingled arousal cloud her thoughts and drown her misgivings.

Because she has to, she moves; because she has to, she rapes him.

The darkness in her _revels_ in every scratch, every bite, every snarl. The loathing in Sesshomaru's eyes only makes it want more, and she moves faster and faster, instinctively tilting her head back as what can only be the beginnings of the Mate-Bond stirs beneath her skin. Her breath heaves faster, and Sesshomaru's aura dances against her as the markings on her arms begin to burn.

There's sweat at her temples, slicking every space where their skin touches, heat and sensation and pure power bouncing back and forth between them like a ball thrown between friends. She can't breathe, can't force herself to focus long enough to keep a steady pace, can't help but _want_ with every fiber of her being.

She whimpers, whispers something that sounds vaguely like a request for more, and Sesshomaru lurches forward to take her bottom lip between his teeth. He bites, growls, allows her to sink her own fangs into the swell of his lips, and—

Her climax hits her suddenly, and she freezes just long enough for Sesshomaru to get a good grip at her hips; his claws sink viciously into the skin just shy of the small of her back, and he gouges her violently, claws cutting four arcing, burning lines over her hips.

She screams, her orgasm soaring into bliss at the pain, and he both comes and breaks the chain holding him with an almighty tug in the same instant, flooding her insides with the heat of his seed and snarling all the while. Their eyes lock and she feels the Mate-Bond take, an otherworldly awareness of the dog lord sliding soul-deep; she shudders.

And then he's pushing her away from him and she's scrambling to put space between them, bile burning at the back of her throat and her stomach roiling. The darkness—and the newly formed Bond—balk at the distance, but Kagome _knows_ what she's done, and she won't force him to deal with her anymore than he has to. She won't take his will from him again.

So they sit as far away from each other as they can, no more than an arm's length apart because the Bond makes her bones ache when she moves any further, and wait for someone to come for them.

It won't take long, she thinks, and the tenebrous roll of her new power nearly perks, because she hopes the woman, the one who'd put her in here and had no doubt performed whatever ritual had been performed, is the one who comes back.

Because Kagome is going to rip her limb from limb, and she's going to enjoy every second of it.

* * *

  
**End Note** :

_This will be updated probably once every once in a while, and is also posted on Dokuga. I'm not going to promise any sort of regular update schedule, but I will try for at least one chapter every couple of weeks (or, preferably, once a week)._

_Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll let me know what you thought, whether you liked or hated it - every opinion counts._

_~ **Aubrey**_

* * *

 


	2. II

* * *

**Pre-Note:**

_I apologize for the lateness of this chapter, but I didn't want to risk uploading something badly written just to make a deadline. Also, a nod of credit goes to Rin-Rin for her Obscure Word Challenge over on Dokuga, which helped me complete this chapter—I used the Fauvism prompt very slightly near the end (don't worry if you miss it, because it's **very** vague). Once again, please heed the warnings, and enjoy._

* * *

  **[II]**

 **WARNINGS:** _Implied Rape/Non-Con, Angst, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Dark!Kagome, Murderous!Sesshomaru, Traumatized!Kagura, Murderous Ideations_

* * *

There is space between them, and it is not enough, because the beast in Sesshomaru wants her _gone_ , he wants her out of his sight and out of his life and out of his _head_ and he can't stop _thinking_ about the pressure of her aura and the smell of her arousal and dear gods, he just wants her to _go away_ , he doesn't want to see her or smell her or feel her and he knows that he can't do anything to make that happen, not here, not now and probably not for quite some time. The knowledge eats away at him, burrows under his skin like an infection and swells until he feels like he might burst from it; until he wants to get it out some way, wants to get rid of it in some way before it destroys him completely.

And it's all because of _her_ , all because of _Kagome_.

He can't even think her _name_ without rage and spite and bitterness crowding in his throat, and he clenches his fists where they lay atop his thighs, knowing that she isn't looking at him and that he can afford to show such blatant emotion, but everything he does reminds him of what happened, and when the skin of his hands becomes too much (because he's naked, vulnerable, violated, humiliated and he wants his clothes, he wants his swords and his silks and he wants to bathe, to soak, to scrub, to _forget_ ) against the skin of his thighs, he places them instead on the stone at his sides. His hair brushes against his groin and oh that's much worse than his own hands and he can't _do_ anything about anything because he can't move his hair, he can't let her see him again and when did he become so weak, when did he become so self-conscious about himself, _why did this have to happen to **him**?_

His eyes cut, involuntarily, to the youkai who sits no more than an arm's length away, and in that moment, he wants to hurt her. He wants to maim her and break her and _kill_ her and he wants it so badly that he can _taste_ it—the tang of her blood at the back of his throat as he strips her skin from her body, the sweet acridness of his poison eating away at her bones, the bitter agony of death as she bleeds all over the floor.

But he can't.

He can't, because _he_ chose this no matter how badly he wishes to blame it on her, and because she is his mate, his Lady, his _life_ —and he hates himself for it. He hates himself and he wants her dead and he _can't kill her_ because of his own decision; because he was too stubborn to die, too stubborn to trust anyone with Rin's care but himself, too stubborn to pass his inheritance on to the half-breed who didn't even know that the Western Lands were his when Sesshomaru stepped down, too stubborn to let Naraku out-strategize him. Simply too stubborn by too much and because of his pride and his determination and his _mercy_ (because even if she'd killed him, the once-human would have died soon after at the spider's hands), he's stuck with her for the rest of his life.

Stuck with the woman who had violated him. Whom he had _allowed_ to violate him.

Sesshomaru can still feel her body heat against his, can still feel the scrape of her claws and the bite of her teeth and the wet heat of her passage and it makes his skin crawl to remember the pleasure she had wrung from him. He wants to move away from her, but the Bond is already swelling in his bones as it is—the space between them is too far for it, but not far enough for Sesshomaru because he wants her _gone_ , and for the second time in his life, he can't have what he wants.

Thoughts running in ever tightening circles, Sesshomaru forces himself not to dwell on it any longer. He has no choice but to endure—and had had no plan _but_ to endure when he'd made up his mind. _The girl is not unbearable,_ he reminds himself, just as he'd reminded himself before she'd laid a hand on him. _She is strong in her own way, and loyal, and learned. She will need to be taught our ways, but she is not hopeless. She is not._

He repeats that fact in his head, a mantra to stave off the maddening whirl of hatred and murderous intent that swirls in his chest every time he so much as catches a fresh whiff of her scent. He _knows_ that it isn't her fault, and he's even reluctantly able to admit to himself that it isn't his fault either, but he can't help the rage—it builds and fades and rises again no matter how he tries to rationalize it, and he knows without having to ask that she feels horribly as well; that she's beginning to ache from her transformation and that there's guilt, _so much guilt_ , gnawing away at her psyche like a rabid dog.

He almost wants to tell her that it isn't her fault, that her feelings are unnecessary, but he knows that she would say the same about his anger, and he doesn't want to talk about his anger. He doesn't want to talk about anything, not with her.

And so he shifts into a more comfortable position and, in silence, they wait.

\-------------------------

\----------

Of all the things Kagome doesn't like to do, waiting is at least in the top five, and waiting here, with Sesshomaru, is akin to torture. _And considering where we are,_ she thinks wryly, casting a glance around their cell, _that's almost poetic._

For the millionth time in thirty minutes, she resists the urge to sigh, choosing instead to shift just a little to take some of the pressure off of her rear. It doesn't get rid the low-grade pain that's throbbing in her muscles, but she likes to pretend that it does—it's a reprieve she's willing to fake, since she can't get away from what she really wants to get away from.

 _Or **who**_ _I want to get away from, more like._

A quick glance from the corner of her eye shows that Sesshomaru hasn't moved since he'd shifted earlier. He's sitting casually, one leg pulled up and the other stretched out in front of him, one arm draped over his knee and the other across his lap, and if she didn't know what she'd done—if the she couldn't still smell and feel and see the evidence of it in the scent of his skin and the itching stretch of their dried fluids against her thighs and the fresh blood spread across his skin—she would think he was comfortable.

And if the Bond wasn't tearing away at her insides, she could pretend he was.

Her fingers shake and she twists them together to stave off the trembling, and then swallows the lump in her throat. It burns, and the Bond scrabbles at her emotions and her instincts with impatient fingers. _Help him,_ it coaxes. _You are his mate, you must help him, he is yours, you must take care of him._

And if these were any other circumstances, Kagome might have agreed, but they aren't and she doesn't, and she ignores the urge to reach out to him, to lay her hand against his thigh and her head against his shoulder. She _can't_ touch him, especially without his permission, not after she's already taken so much away from him. Just the thought of breaching his personal space again makes her stomach roil uncomfortably, and despite the Bond's assurances that he would welcome her touch, her brain knows better.

 _He doesn't want me, and he doesn't want anything **from**_ _me either, especially comfort._

When she flicks another glance at him, he isn't looking at her, and she swallows thickly, wanting to cry for what she's done and knowing that she can't, because if she starts crying now, she'll never stop. And she can't break down, she _can't_ , because they have to get out of here, they have to survive this, and maybe afterward, when she has a moment to herself, she can mourn the loss of everything she used to be—human and pure and _light_.

But until then...

Drawing in a deep breath through her nose, she ignores the Bond's urgings and her own suffocating thoughts and turns her gaze back to her twirling fingers. There are black claws in place of her neatly trimmed nails and the markings on her arms have stretched down the backs of her hands and swirled around her middle fingers in a delicate design.

She can feel them now, the markings, as a separate entity, as though the darkness of her new youki couldn't fit in her body and had to be displayed on the outside to compensate. She knows without looking that they sweep over her shoulders and down her back and sides and legs, and she's discovered that she can make them shape themselves differently if she concentrates hard enough. It gives her something to do besides convince herself that talking to Sesshomaru is a good thing (because she knows that it's not) to pass the time.

She's in the middle of trying to force them across the palms of her hands when Sesshomaru goes utterly still—not that he was moving before, but something in the way he sits changes, and when she looks at him he's watching the door with a single-minded intensity that makes her wonder why the wood hasn't burst into flame yet.

The sound of footsteps break through her musings, and Kagome recognizes the dark taint of a shard in the same instant that Sesshomaru hefts himself to his feet in one smooth motion. She stares up at him, confused, but before she can ask what's going on, he begins to walk toward the door and she's forced to follow, lest the Bond rattle her insides more than it already is.

Confusion turns to surprise and then into tentative hope as the door unlocks and then opens, and she sees Kohaku, of all people, standing on the other side. He carries a bundle of clothing that looks like Sesshomaru's signature silks, the dog youkai's swords tucked under one arm and his boots dangling from one hand, and he looks like he's been in battle—his eyes are tired and his cheeks smeared with blood, as though he's wiped someone else's off of his face. His dark eyes flick first to Sesshomaru and then to her, and he steps aside without a word. He's letting them out.

The hope blooms into joy, and Kagome smiles at him, bright and grateful. Even though he doesn't return the gesture, she knows he sees it—something flickers in his dead eyes, behind the veneer of the shard's influence. "I'll tell Sango that you're okay," she whispers as Sesshomaru takes his effects.

Kohaku blinks, and some of the blankness leaves his eyes at the mention of his sister. He nods, just once, and then turns and begins to walk down the hallway, bare feet slapping quietly against the stone. She can still sense the shard at the base of his skull, but she feels it differently now, as a strange tickling sensation in her fingertips instead of a strong pulse of power in her chest. She doesn't want the shard, like she'd wanted it when she was human, and almost as though the realization was all she needed to recognize a problem, she wonders how they're going to collect the shards now.

 _I can't purify them, even though I can still sense them_. The thought is uncomfortable, and the fact that they'll probably have to find a priestess strong enough to purify the shards for them rankles at her sense of duty. How is she supposed to complete her task when she can't perform the steps needed to do so? _I can't even call myself a priestess anymore,_ she thinks bitterly, half-listening to the rustle of Sesshomaru's clothes and the steady beat of his heart. _I'm not fit to **touch**_ _the Jewel, much less search for the shards._

 _And without that right,_ she wonders, _why should I stay here?_

The urge to go home hits her suddenly and all at once, and she blinks back the sting of tears. She might not even be able to go through the Well anymore—she doesn't even know why she could go through in the first place, and except for the influence of the Jewel, she has no way of getting across. _And even if I did, would my family be afraid of me?_

"Come," Sesshomaru says, pulling her out of her thoughts, and she immediately stuffs every ounce of homesickness and sorrow down to a place where only she can see it, and she follows Sesshomaru as he begins to traverse the halls.

Moving, she quickly realizes, feels strange. Her legs are still _her_ legs, she knows that, but they feel as though they should belong to someone else—she's never walked so smoothly in her life, and even though her right side had sometimes ached from the bend of her hip all the way down to her foot, it doesn't hurt now and she feels like it might never hurt again. Her limbs feel loose and strangely comfortable, and the echo of their footsteps sound almost too loud alongside the thud of their hearts and the rasp of their breaths.

She forces herself not to get lost in her new senses—she can hear Sesshomaru's blood pumping in his veins and smell the rotten stench of old blood and corpses—and keeps her eyes firmly on Sesshomaru's back even when they go past doors where she _knows_ there are people inside. They don't have time to stop and rescue everyone, and the lack of auras means that the prisoners are human, and she can't help them anyway, not without medicine and bandages and a way to get them out.

 _They have to die,_ the darkness in her whispers, slinking in the back of her mind. _And perhaps we ought to go help them along, hmm? Why let them suffer?_

She swallows and fixes her eyes on Sesshomaru's swaying hair, dirty but still bright, and the strange scentless, lifeless non-entity fur that sweeps over his shoulder. She knows that she can't give in to that darkness, because the last time she did she took something from someone who didn't deserve it, and the least she can do, out of respect for the boundaries she's already crossed, is to ignore it.

She spends the rest of the winding walk up from the dungeons disregarding the whispering voice at the back of her mind, and she's so caught up in her own head that she doesn't notice the scent of blood until it smacks her in the face.

A combined urge to gag and inhale deeply leaves her struggling for air, and she presses one hand over her nose and breathes through her fingers, searching wildly for the source of the smell. The stone of the hallways is clean, but there's a door up ahead that's thrown wide open, light from inside spilling out into the hall, and she can only guess that the scent is coming from there.

Cautiously, she follows Sesshomaru closer, and when he pauses in the doorway she gets a wave of disgusted anger so intense across the Bond that she nearly steps away from him—curiosity pushes her closer instead, and she ducks past him without touching him.

Almost immediately her foot slides in blood, and even though she's never been squeamish she automatically backs away from it, eyes darting around the room.

 _Well,_ she thinks, _that's where the blood on Kohaku's face came from_.

There are three human men—or at least Kagome thinks they might have resembled human men at some point—scattered around the room, and the one closest to the door has had his throat slit from ear to ear, a grim grin in a place where it shouldn't be. His eyes are missing and his arms have been twisted behind him in a way that is far from natural, and the hilt of a dagger protrudes from his exposed groin—Kagome wonders, morbidly, if he was dead before the knife found its home, and then she shakes the thought off and turns her attention to the only living being in the room besides herself and Sesshomaru.

And then she realizes why Sesshomaru had reacted the way he had, because the woman laying bound and gagged on the ratty futon in the center of the room is Kagura, and Kagome feels instantly, completely enraged.

 _"I just want to be free,"_ Kagura had told her once, when she'd stumbled across her one summer evening nearly a year ago. The witch hadn't attacked her then, and they'd spent almost ten minutes in each others presence—wary, tense minutes, but minutes just the same. Kagome had seen a different side of Kagura that evening, a side that was young and hopeful and independent, and even though she'd offered to help her, Kagura had only smiled bitterly and said that without her heart, living was bound to be a little complicated.

And now, standing here, listening to Kagura's heart thumping weakly in her chest, Kagome realizes that she can give Kagura the chance to live. She can give Kagura the freedom she's always wanted, and at the same time she can make up for what she's done. She can save Kagura's life, and, maybe, redeem her own.

When she approaches, Sesshomaru's boots clicking behind her, Kagura doesn't move, but when she reaches forward to touch her, the wind witch moans hoarsely and leans away, red eyes going feverish with fear. Kagome's throat aches, and she pulls her hand back, knowing that despite Kohaku's efforts to protect her, she had been violated.

"Kagu - " Her voice cracks, and she has to try again. "Kagura, I'm going to untie you, okay? I have to touch you, and I know you don't want me to, but I promise I'm only going to get you out, and then we're going to leave."

She reaches out again, and again, Kagura moans and flinches and leans away. Tears sting at Kagome's eyes. "Kagura…"

"She cannot hear you," Sesshomaru says, and the baritone timbre of his voice only makes Kagura moan louder, the sour scent of what Kagome can only categorize as fear wafting from the wind witch's bare and bloodied skin. "If you are going to free her, you must do it now—we do not have time to dawdle."

Kagome nods, and even though it hurts to ignore Kagura's needs so thoroughly, she reaches forward and cuts as quickly as she can through the ropes. She's careful not to touch her any more than is necessary, and she bites back a snarl at the state of Kagura's nether regions, torn and still bleeding. She tears off the sleeves of her yukata and ties a crude bandage around the witch's waist and between her legs, sushing her as she whimpers and cries and shakes, and as she cuts the rest of the ropes, Kagura continues to make noises, and Kagome can't help talking to her, telling her that everything will be alright now, that she isn't going to hurt her, that no one is ever going to hurt her again.

She sweeps the ropes away from the sorceress's skin and then grabs her hand and coaxes her into standing. Swaying, Kagura whimpers and shakes and absolutely reeks of fear, and the only reason Kagome doesn't release her entirely is because she thinks, on some subconscious level, that Kagura knows what's happening. Somewhere behind her wide, terrified eyes, Kagura knows that she's safe.

And Kagome isn't going to let her think anything differently.

\-------------------------

\----------

Sesshomaru's mother once told him that there are some things that never change, and as he watches his mate live up to the compassionate manner that precedes her, he feels that knowledge cement itself in his being.

He hadn't expected her to leave the wind witch there, no, but he also hadn't expected the determination to save her to nearly override the guilt that's been on the edge of his awareness since the Bond formed.

 _And yet,_ he thinks, watching her pull the battered youkai toward the door, _the proof of it is before me._

He follows but is careful not to speak—the spike in Kagura's fear at the sound of his voice isn't something he can bear, because for all her arrogance, Kagura had been more to him than an incarnation of the spider, more than just another face, and he doesn't want to frighten her any more than he wants to frighten Rin. He's never seen her like this—determined, he's witnessed; anger, he's provoked; disgust, he's observed—but never has she been like _this_ , broken and terrified and simply not herself.

He doesn't look at her as he passes them, and he ignores the gentle murmurings that croon from his mate's throat as they traverse the halls. He's been following the faint scent of clean air since the boy had released them, and with the smell growing steadily stronger, he knows that it's only a matter of time until they're free.

The thought of fleeing like this irritates what little of his pride still remains in his possession, but he knows full well the benefits of a strategic retreat—they need time to come up with a better plan of attack, and even though there's nothing he would love more than to tear Naraku and his bitch of a priestess apart, he can't. Not with an untrained mate and a battered prisoner and a weakly cemented Mate-Bond as his only allies, at any rate.

No, Naraku's time will come—he only has to be patient, and patient he will be. He has to.

It's only a handful of minutes later that his nose leads them to their chance at freedom—a heavy looking metal grate that shows a rocky mountain path on its other side. His mate makes a relieved noise in her throat, and as she promises Kagura, whose fear has faded into a blank sort of compliance, that they're almost out, Sesshomaru sprays a thin layer of poison across the bars, lifting a sleeve to ward off the sweetly bitter odor of corroding metal.

When the poison has done it's work, he steps through the gap left behind and listens as his companions follow, his mate's footsteps nearly as tentative as Kagura's, who has begun to smell of infection, which means that she's too weak to heal herself and that traveling in his orb is out of the question—he can't put more pressure on her, so they'll have to fly.

He takes a moment to gain his bearings—the sun is setting to their left and he knows that his half-brother's village is in the East, and so he points himself in that direction and gathers his youki at his feet, flicking his fingers in invitation at his mate's wide eyes.

She not-quite-scrambles to join him, keeping herself between he and Kagura as she sits at his feet. She squeaks quietly when he lifts them in the air, and Sesshomaru quietly prepares himself for a long flight.

Kagura falls asleep halfway through the journey, curled, surprisingly, in the once-priestess's lap, and when he glances down, his mate is staring straight ahead, one hand in Kagura's unbound hair and the other toying with the hem of her yukata, which is splattered with strangely shaped splashes of oranges and reds and yellows from the setting sun, bright against the paleness of her skin and the darkness of her hair.

"Do you think," she begins quietly, "that they'll recognize me?"

He looks away in the instant before she looks up at him. "Perhaps."

"Or perhaps not," she whispers, and he hums.

"Or perhaps not."

For a long time, she says nothing, and the sun sets, throwing them into dimly lit darkness. "Sesshomaru?" She shifts, and he senses her reach for the silk of his pant leg only to yank her hand back when he growls, however softly. "I know you don't want to hear this and I know you don't want to talk about, about _it_ , and I promise that I won't say anything after this, but I just. I wanted to say that I'm sorry." Her voice is thick with guilt and the Bond scrambles in his chest, echoing her sorrow back into him. He ignores it.

"I'm sorry," she says again, softly and seriously, "and even though this isn't what either of us wanted, I know that it's permanent and I don't want for it to be...for it to be _bad_ , you know?" Her gaze touches him now, laying so heavily on his face that he can't help but turn to her, can't help but watch as her eyes dance with tears and sincerity and hope. "So I'm going to do my best to learn whatever it is I have to learn, to be the"—she pales, just a little—"the Lady of the West so that you can be proud of your decision, and, well." Swiping at her eyes, she smiles shakily and looks away, suddenly shy. "I just wanted you to know that."

He has nothing to say, and so he says nothing, simply nodding when she glances up at him again. The Bond gives a strange lurch and settles just a little more in his chest, and he resists the immediate urge to rail against it.

 _The choice has been made,_ he reminds himself, _and now I must live with it—with her._

And he forces himself to shift closer to her, to let the silk of his pant leg brush against her arm.

It's the first step of many small ones, he knows, to making this bearable; the first step for him, and the first step for her— _for Kagome_.

 _All will be well,_ he thinks firmly, and wills himself to believe it.

He _has_ to believe it, or else this will be over before it even begins, and he isn't going to give Naraku the satisfaction of being the one to finally break him—not now, and not ever.

* * *

**End Note:**

_Ah, finally finished with this chapter—it took me three rewrites to get it to this point, and even though I'm not completely happy with it, I'm tired of looking at it and if I try to rewrite it again, I'll probably hate it more. Also, please let me know if you see any italics that don't have a space after them, because for some reason they disappear after I upload. I've already gone through and checked, but let me know if you see anything that I missed!_  
 _Thanks for reading_ _, and I hope you enjoyed!_

****_~Aubrey_** **

* * *

 


	3. III

**Pre-Note:** _This chapter was written in, like, two days. I have no clue why it came so easily when the last chapter took so long, but I'm definitely not about to complain about it. Enjoy!_

* * *

**[III]**

**WARNINGS:** _Angst, Dark!Kagome, Mention of Torture, Mild Language, Mention of Amnesia, Treatment of a Rape Victim_

* * *

The moon is high by the time they land on the outskirts of the village, and Kagura's weight has gone from pleasantly warm to uncomfortably hot. Laying a hand on her forehead, Kagome licks her lips and looks up as Sesshomaru's youki cloud dissolves below her.

"Something's wrong," she says, and her mate's cool gaze slides clinically over Kagura's sprawled form.

"She is too weak to heal her wounds," he responds, and then looks into the forest, toward the village. "Wait here."

He's gone before she has the chance to protest, and the Bond stretches for a moment, and then snaps back like a whip, sending pain lashing through her still-aching muscles. Her jaw locks so quickly that she nearly bites her tongue in half, and she avoids involuntarily clawing at Kagura's face only because she grabs at the dirt beneath her rather than the head in her lap. The urge to follow him crawls along her legs and trickles down her spine, and the only reason she doesn't go is because she knows that she can't leave Kagura alone, not as vulnerable as she is.

The overwhelming desire to follow, and the pain that comes from ignoring it, doesn't last more than a minute—the Bond begins to stretch again, like a needle between she and Sesshomaru that swells thicker as he nears, and by the time he's in her line of sight, she can breathe again and she slowly loosens her hold on the dirt. For the first time in hours, they look directly at one another, and Kagome feels the Bond release her from its agonizing grip—when it's still and mostly quiet, Sesshomaru looks away.

Silence falls for an uncomfortable moment, and then Kagome's attention is snatched away from the purring whisper in her mind about how beautiful Sesshomaru looks bathed in shadow ( _shut up_ , she'd tried to command it, and it had only laughed and laughed and laughed) by the familiarly unfamiliar sensation of Inuyasha's youki against her senses.

It feels strange, hot and prickly with a bite of something that reminds her of the darkness in her, and she waits for him to show with baited breath. _What's he going to think when he sees me? Will he recognize me, or will he think that I'm an enemy...?_

Her thoughts whirl in circles up until the moment Inuyasha shows, and she knows instantly that he doesn't know who she is; confusion spreads across his rugged face in a wave, and anger follows it almost instantly, like a dark cloud over the moon. He turns to Sesshomaru.

"What the hell? I thought you said you brought Kagome back, asshole! Where is she?"

Kagome hears the rumble in Sesshomaru's chest, a cross between an annoyed growl and a tired sort of _I-knew-it_ noise, but Inuyasha's ears don't even flick at the sound. "Surely you will not continue to be a disgrace to our father all your life, half-breed?" the dog lord questions, a hint of exasperation buried deep in the monotone affect of his voice. "Use your senses."

A furrow creases Inuyasha's brow and he glares. "I _am_ usin' my senses—you smell like shit, by the way—and Kagome ain't here!" His hand wanders to the hilt of his sword. "I swear, if you got out and decided to bring the wind bitch and whoever the hell _that_ is instead of Kagome, I'm gonna—"

"Inuyasha, I'm right here."

It's obvious that he wasn't expecting her to speak—he turns so quickly that his bangs whip away from his forehead before settling, and in the moonlight his eyes glint a muted, washed-out yellow. "The hell you mean, wench?" He takes a step closer to her, eyes narrowing and nose twitching. Kagome nearly forgets to breathe under the weight of his scrutiny, and prays that he'll recognize her, that he'll look past the markings she can feel swirling on her face and the obvious weight of her youki and see _her_.

"My Kagome's a miko, not a youkai," he says at last, and Kagome's breath rushes out of her in a shocked huff. He sniffs at her again, and she feels his youki touch briefly against hers, a searching sort of touch that makes the Bond rise in her bones. "And she sure as hell ain't mated to Lord Asshole over there." He flicks a glance to his half-brother, and then leans closer, conspiratorially, and whispers, "I dunno how he got you to—"

"Sit boy!"

Inuyasha flinches.

Kagome scowls.

Nothing happens.

In the moments that follow, the hanyou's eyes go wide with dawning recognition and Kagome very quickly shoves the grief rising into her throat back down with the rest of her sorrow. She hadn't realized that the beads would no longer work, but she should have, of _course_ she should have, she should have—

"K-Kagome...?" Inuyasha has come closer, and he sounds as though someone has stolen his breath and most of his voice along with it. She nods, slowly, and he reaches partially toward her before jerking back. "But, you...You're not—"

"There was a priestess," she whispers, trying so hard not to cry that her guts ache with it, "she did something to me, something that changed me, I—" And she can't finish the sentence, not with him looking at her like that, like she's someone he doesn't know; not with him backing away from her like he can't stand to be within ten feet of her. "Inuyasha, I—"

"You were supposed to save her," Inuyasha whispers, and for a moment Kagome doesn't understand, and then he looks to Sesshomaru, and his fists clench at his sides. "You were supposed to get her out _safe_ , not let them hurt her more, you were—"

"She is alive," Sesshomaru interjects calmly, and if anything, the level tone of his voice only makes Inuyasha angrier.

"Listen, you overgrown _dog_ , just 'cause she's alive don't mean you didn't screw up!" His voice goes quieter and he clenches his fists until Kagome can smell blood. "You told me before you got yourself captured that you were gonna _save_ her, not that you were gonna let them fucking _destroy_ her! You said—" He stops, swallows, turns away. When he speaks again, his voice shakes. "You said that you would bring her back to me."

Kagome can't think around the whirl of confusion, and she looks from Inuyasha to Sesshomaru and back again. "Inuyasha, I'm, I'm fine, and I haven't been gone that long, have I?" He stiffens, and suspicion crawls up to settle in her throat. "Inuyasha? H - how long was I gone?" He doesn't respond—doesn't even look at her—and it's Sesshomaru whose voice breaks the silence.

"The spider took you three moon cycles ago, and I allowed my own capture a fortnight afterward."

She has an immediate urge to deny it, because she couldn't have been gone that long, she would _remember_ that, wouldn't she? There's _no way_ she could have lost three months' worth of information, she _couldn't_ have! "I don't – three _months_ , how could I – are you _sure_?" Sesshomaru nods, just once, and Kagome has to look away from both of them, has to try and wrap her mind around the fact that she's lost three months.

_And why can't I remember?_ She recalls nothing of being captured or of the priestess having performed the ritual, but she does remember her last visit home and the book of children's stories she'd bought for Shippo and Rin.

The memories after that are simply gone—there are no fuzzy images for her to try and decipher, no snatches of conversation or sense-memories or any swaths of strong emotion. It's just gone, wiped away, and the next thing she remembers is waking up with pain thundering along her nerves and confusion clouding her mind.

Her head begins to ache, and she pinches the bridge of her nose, ignoring the scrape of her claws against her skin. "Okay," she says firmly, "okay, that's. That's fine, or maybe not so fine, but okay, whatever." She knows that she shouldn't push it all away like this, that she's going to have to deal with it at some point, but she can't right now, she just _can't_ , not dirty and smelling of stale sex and coagulated, flaking blood. "Inuyasha, can you bring me my things?" She rubs at her forehead and passes a hand over Kagura's sweaty face. "And my medicine bag too." He doesn't move, and when she looks up his mouth is open and there's a stubborn light in his eyes that she knows all too well. She shakes her head. "Inuyasha, _please_. I don't want to talk about it right now, okay? Maybe when everyone wakes up, and after I've had a bath and some time to myself, but just. Please go get my things. Please."

She doesn't know whether it's the 'please' or the desperation, but Inuyasha nods, sets his jaw, and jumps off toward the village.

As his aura fades, Kagome closes her eyes and feels everything that's happened begin to crowd in her head. Her thoughts swirl repeatedly through the facts: she hasn't been home in three months and doesn't know if she _can_ go home now; she's no longer human, no longer a priestess, no longer capable of completing her task the way she began it; she's mated to Sesshomaru and she knows from Sango's lessons on youkai that it's permanent, that she'll _be_ mated to Sesshomaru until one of them dies; and she's now the Lady of the West and she doesn't really know what that means for her.

And that, more than anything, is what scares her. She's never been good at meeting the expectations of others, not really. Sure, she can make her mother proud and honor the memory of her father and try her best to make her grandfather happy to have her as a granddaughter, but pleasing her family is much less of an impossibility than pleasing an entire population of which, until a handful of hours ago, she'd been a direct enemy of. How is she supposed to stand beside Sesshomaru and, well, do whatever it is that she's supposed to do when youkai will hate her for who she was and humans will hate her for what she's become?

The short sigh that huffs out of her feels strained, and she realizes with a start that she's on the verge of crying—valiantly, she fights to get a hold of herself, drawing in deep, calming breaths. The tightness in her chest fades and the ache in her throat disappears, and by the time Inuyasha comes back with her bags, she feels relatively balanced again.

He drops them near her but doesn't meet her eye, and then moves as though to go back to the village. Just at the edge of the trees he pauses and his aura dances briefly with agitation and pain, and his wood-wild scent fills with bitterness, but whatever bothers him obviously isn't worth speaking about; he shakes his head and leaps away again.

Her throat hurts—her _heart_ hurts—but Kagome shakes it off. She'll cry about it later, but right now she has other things to do, and she can't let her emotions distract her from what needs to be done. Not right now.

Kagura's temperature hasn't changed, but the rancid scent wafting up from her skin has increased by a small degree, and Kagome can only guess that she's getting worse. _She's dying_ , she realizes. _She's dying and she hasn't even gotten to live yet._

The thought piles a little more weight onto the load she's already carrying, and she shoulders it without letting the strain break her—she _can't_ let it break her, and so she looks up at Sesshomaru and swallows her pain. "Do you know of a spring or a lake or, or something? Somewhere we'll be safe?"

Instead of responding, Sesshomaru steps close and she feels his youki trickle beneath her, and when his cloud begins to lift them out of the small clearing, Kagome breathes deep and strengthens her resolve.

She can do this, she knows it. She can live this new life and make her amends—she only has to take it one step at a time, and everything will be fine. It has to be.

\-------------------------

\----------

He takes her to the one place he knows of where she'll be able to bathe and care for Kagura in peace—a hidden valley nearly three hours away from Inuyasha's village, the entrance of which is carved into a mountainside and only visible to those who already know it's there.

Getting inside takes a bit of maneuvering—Kagura has to be carried, and despite his mate's new strength, the height difference between she and the wind witch is just enough to make her attempts awkward. However, Sesshomaru's own height means that he has to duck to traverse the passage into the valley, and carrying someone on his back while crouching convinces him that there are some things that simply shouldn't be repeated after one try.

Once inside, Kagome makes an awed little noise, and even though he's been here countless times since his first visit as a child, he can't help but look at it through new eyes.

The entrance opens a few feet from a moderately sized lake, and all around it there is lush grass and a veritable mob of brightly colored, lightly scented flowers between the trunks of sturdy, vibrant trees. The shape of the mountains that surround the valley shunts moonlight directly into it, and he can see clear across it even though their flight took too many hours for the moon to still be directly overhead. There's a waterfall on the valley's other end, and the water from it drops into an underground reservoir, which then feeds the lake with a continuous supply of fresh, cool water. The rest of the valley is flat, though he knows that the ground near the waterfall is thinner in some places than in others, and he can remember spending hours at a time mapping the area after falling through more times than he was comfortable with.

He's drawn out of his thoughts when his mate moves past him, and he follows her after a moment, carefully moving Kagura from his back to a patch of grass near the lake. Kagome sits next to her and dips her fingers briefly into the water, and then sighs, kneels at Kagura's side, and begins to rummage through a hefty black bag, her bright yellow pack out of the way and off to the side.

Settling against a tree a few feet away, he watches as she goes about preparing to take care of Kagura's wounds. She pulls out a shallow bowl and a pile of cloths that smell of old, washed-out blood, one of which is laid out, and then she sets a collection of instruments atop it—a curved needle, thread, a strange device with a blunt end, and two rolls of bandages that stink of what she'd once told him was a special sort of medicine from her time. She also pulls out a white bottle and a container full of small white blobs— _cotton balls,_ he remembers—and then she draws in a deep breath and begins to remove Kagura's crude bandages.

The stench is immediate—blood and seed and infection—but Kagome (he's getting better at using her name, he realizes suddenly, and feels a frisson of his lost pride tremble up his spine) doesn't react except to set her jaw and get to work.

She shoves the blood soaked pieces of cloth into a small, clear bag made of something that seals with a series of tinny clicks when she presses her fingers along it, and then opens the white bottle and gags at the smell. He covers his nose with a sleeve when he catches a whiff of it—it stinks of something he's never smelled before, something that sits itself on the back of his tongue, acrid and overpowering—but his mate only coughs, face screwed into a moue of abject disgust, and soaks multiple cotton balls in the clear liquid.

She puts the little white stopper that isn't a stopper back onto the bottle, and then sets it aside, lifts one of Kagura's legs up onto her shoulder, and wipes with one of the wet objects.

Even feverish and unconscious, Kagura jerks away, and Kagome loses her grip on the wind witch's thigh and gains a kick to the side of her head in the process. She winces but shakes it off and continues with her job, the determination he can feel through the Bond displayed all over her face.

She endures Kagura's spasmodic jerking, and deposits cotton ball after cotton ball into the bag with the makeshift bandages, her jaw set.

He finds himself impressed at her tenacity. It isn't anything new, not exactly, but although he's witnessed her ability to out-stubborn the half-breed, he's never seen her work so adamantly toward one goal when met with as much resistance as Kagura is giving her.

_"Sometimes people who need help won't take it no matter what you promise them,"_ she'd told him once, after a village refused her aid when finding out that she traveled with youkai. She had been visibly upset that day, he remembers, but when he'd asked why she didn't simply ignore the wishes of the village elders, she had explained that some people just didn't know how to accept help. _"Some people don't like charity."_

It had been the first time since he'd joined them that she had been met with fear and distrust, and it hadn't been the last time. He wonders what those same people would think if they saw her now. Would they feel sympathy for her treatment or would they be glad that they had never accepted her?

His thoughts taper off when Kagome pushes the last of the cotton balls into the clear bag, and then reaches for the strange device, plunges it into the lake's water, pulls back on a thin portion of it and then transfers it between the wind witch's legs. She depresses the part she'd pulled, and water sprays from the blunt tip, rinsing, he assumes, the last of the foul smelling liquid away.

She repeats this process twice, and then fills the device with something from a strangely shaped tube, which she then, after a moment of uncertainty, inserts directly into Kagura's passage. He can't help his curiosity.

"What is that instrument, and that substance?"

The glance she flicks at him is odd, a mixture of embarrassment and uncertainty and determination that scrunches her nose and wrinkles the corners of her eyes. "It's a syringe," she responds, "and the substance is a spermicide—it kills sperm, er, seed, I think you call it." She licks her lips. "I don't want her to get pregnant—with child, I mean—from this." Setting aside the 'syringe', she picks up the needle, threads it, and then sets it aside and fills the shallow bowl with water. "I don't know if it'll work, because she isn't human and it's supposed to be used before, not after, and I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be used on open wounds, but..." She shrugs and shakes her head, and then wets a cloth and begins to wipe Kagura's skin.

He accepts her explanation with no comment and doesn't say what he's thinking—that she should use her 'spermicide' as well, lest they be reluctant parents as well as reluctant mates—because he's certain that she's already had the same thought, and while he once would have called her ignorant and childish, she isn't any of those things now and he knows that he doesn't need to tell her what she's already gleaned for herself.

She's wiped down Kagura's face and neck and arms before she speaks again; quietly, she asks, "You let Naraku capture you on purpose?"

He stares off across the lake to keep from looking at her—he doesn't want to see the minute admiration that he can hear in her voice on her face. "It was agreed that I would allow my capture, yes."

"Why? Or, I mean, I know _why_ , but." Water splashes into the bowl, and he still doesn't look at her. "Why did you decide to save me at all? Why not just, I don't know, let me die?"

"You were the Shikon's priestess; not saving you was not an option."

Her aura gives a strange twist at that, as though she doesn't believe him, but before he can say anything else, she asks, "How did you know that I was alive?"

He almost doesn't tell her the truth, because the truth is going to be one more thing she has to deal with (and that collection of things just keeps growing and he doesn't know how much more she can take), but in the end, he says, "Every day, the spider would send the void-child, and Inuyasha would watch as he tortured you."

She goes completely, utterly still, and he has to look at her now, he has to meet the gaze he can feel boring into him, has to absorb the shock and the disbelief and the slowly dawning horror. "He _watched_ Naraku torture me?" Her voice is just on this side of shrill, and when he nods, her lips part with her incredulity. " _Why_? Why would you let him watch that?"

"I did not let him, but he would not turn the child away." He pauses, and then forges on, not because he wants to, but because he thinks she deserves to know everything. "He did not say as much, but I believe he felt it was atonement for not protecting you."

She makes one desperate little sound and then bites her lip so hard that it bleeds. The smell of her blood reminds him of things he would rather not remember, and he pushes them aside in favor of watching the wound heal as she drops the cloth into the bowl and swallows thickly, once, twice, three times.

He knows that, except for their encounter, she doesn't remember her time in Naraku's clutches, and the strain of her lost days—and the knowledge of what Inuyasha had endured—is written across her entire being, easily read in the stiff line of her shoulders and the clenching hands on her thighs and the markings that swirl in maddening circles across the skin of her arms and face.

Her breathing goes ragged, and he's a few seconds from interrupting the obvious struggle she's having with herself when she sighs harshly, shakes her head and rolls her shoulders. Just like that, the tension in her is gone, sucked back into a place so deep that he can't see it on her at all. The tears he'd begun to smell disappear, and when she reaches for the cloth again, her hands don't shake and her movements aren't jerky no matter how the Bond trembles in his chest.

"Not yet, not yet," she whispers, so quietly that he isn't sure whether he was supposed to hear it or not. Louder, and eerily calmly, she asks, "Did you know about the ritual before I was brought to you?"

Again, he wants to lie, and again, he does not. "Yes."

For a portion of a moment nearly too fast for him to hear, her movements falter, and then resume. "They told you?"

"The priestess could not help but gloat."

She laughs, but the sound is bitter and ugly. "Oh, I bet she was all too proud at herself—corrupting the Shikon miko has to be one of her life's greatest achievements." For a few moments more, silence reigns, broken only by the splash of water and the rasp of the cloth against Kagura's skin. "And the, the mating?"

His skin crawls at the unintentional reminder, and he has to force himself not to forbid her from asking of it. _She wants to know, and so she will, and I will never regain my strength if I refuse to face it._

"I...miscalculated the woman's abilities," he admits. "I did not predict that she would know such a ritual—it is not spoken of except in whispers—nor did I think that it would be so far advanced when she brought you to me, and so my plans had to be modified."

She looks at him—he can feel the weight of her gaze on the side of his face, but he doesn't meet her eyes, and after a moment, she turns away again. "Thank you," she murmurs, and before he can respond, she asks, in a much lighter voice, "So how does the Mate-Bond work, exactly?" When he glances at her, she's bending down over one of Kagura's deeper wounds, needle held carefully between her clawed fingers. "I can feel you and your emotions, but what else should I expect?" She flicks a glance at him, and there's muted humor in the moonlit shimmer of her eyes. "I'm not going to wake up one day with silver hair or magenta markings, am I?"

Deep down, some part of him appreciates her disposition, and he shakes his head. "The Bond does not change the physical aspects of a youkai," he answers, looking at her now that she isn't looking at him. "It is always documented as fragile in the beginning, and many new mates spend days in solitude to allow it to cement, but its effects differ among pairs once it has been fully formed."

"Oh." She's shifted from Kagura's right to her left, and is carefully sewing another cut on the wind witch's upper breast, just shy of a vivid red scar where her heart must have been put back in her chest. "What was it like for your parents? I - if you don't mind telling me, that is," she adds hastily, embarrassment turning her cheeks pink. The glance she flicks at him is both apologetic and curious, and when she looks away the Bond nudges gently at him, eager to be fully settled no matter what he wants.

"They were not mated," he says, giving in to the Bond's urgings just this once. _The information is harmless,_ he tells himself, _something she would only have to ask about to obtain._ "I was the product of a convenient pairing, nothing more."

Something like sympathy strikes out across the Bond, but when his mate speaks, he doesn't hear the emotion. "I see." She breaks a thread. "Then what do you think we should expect?"

For a moment, he thinks on it, and eventually settles on the only answer he can honestly give: "I do not know."

And with a nod, Kagome accepts it, and goes back to her task. She works quietly and quickly, and when she's finished, they take turns bathing in the lake, backs turned to one another, and as she stuffs the soiled yukata into a larger clear bag, he drapes the blanket she'd passed to him over Kagura and settles against the tree again.

Kagome shimmies into what she calls a 'sleeping bag', and whispers, "Good night, Sesshomaru," before reaching out to grasp Kagura's fingers, offering comfort even when she knows the wind witch doesn't register it.

Slowly, she drops off to sleep, and he spends long minutes watching the sky darken as dawn approaches, listening to Kagome's even breathing and Kagura's slightly faster, slightly shallower breaths. He listens to the cadence of their heartbeats and the rushing of their blood in their veins, and just before he allows himself to doze off, he feels the Bond solidify just a little bit more.

His last thought is of Kagome's determination, and of how she'll need it in the days to come.

* * *

  **End Note:**

_A couple of important things I wanted to say._

_1\. This will be the **last update for a month**. I'll be doing NaNoWriMo and I don't have any of this written in advance, so there will be **no updates in November**. Chapter IV will be uploaded the first week of December. _

_2\. At this point, the pairing for this story is Sesshomaru/Kagome; however, I would like to know if you all would like to see Kagura added to the pairing (it would be Sesshomaru/Kagome/Kagura). It would be very easy to either add her or pair her with someone else right now, which is why I'm asking, so please let me know. **Majority vote wins**._

_Thanks in advance for your patience and your vote, and I really appreciate the support you all have shown me thus far. I don't respond to reviews all the time, but I want to let you all know that I cherish each and every one of them (though they're understandably scarce on this site, with the IY fandom not being as strong here), especially considering how dark this story is._

_I couldn't ask for better readers, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!_

**~Aubrey**

_p.s. - Is anyone else going to be joining me in the craziness that is NaNoWriMo?  
_

* * *

 


	4. IV

* * *

**Pre-Note:**   


_This story has been nominated for **Best Darkfic/Horror** in this quarter's Dokuga Awards. Guys, I can't even begin to tell you how honored I am to have been nominated, not just for this story but for  Claim ( **Best Lemon and Best Oneshot** ) and A Kitty's Conundrum ( **Best Serial** ), which are both Dokuga exclusives, as well. It just tickles me pink that you all like my writing enough to nominate my stories, and if I could give you all cookies, I'd totally do it._

_Anyway, I hope you all enjoy._

* * *

 [ **IV** ]

**WARNINGS:** _Angst, Dark!Kagome, Disturbing Imagery_

* * *

_In her dream, Kagome sits in her high school literature class, squirming because she's naked and she's sure that everyone else will notice and—_

_And now there's a book in front of her and she knows that she's supposed to read it but the letters are strange, upside down and backwards and none of it makes any sense and she can't—_

_But now she's in front of the classroom and she can hear her classmates laughing at her, and her face is on fire and she wants it to stop, she wants it to just go away and—_

_And there's a hand on her shoulder, warm and large and heavy and the laughter is getting louder and her ears are beginning to ring and she can't breathe because she wants to move but can't, wants to leave the room but can't and her heart is pounding and her face is hot and she wants to curl up and die because she can't take this and—_

_"My pleasure," a voice whispers in her ear and then the hand on her shoulder is curling around her throat instead and the fingers are hot, so hot that they burn, and then they're squeezing tighter and tighter and she can't breathe and she feels claws curling into her skin, feels blood running hot and thick down her chest and her classmates are still laughing, **why are they laughing** , why won't anyone **help** her, can't they see that she's **dying** , can't they see—_

_And then the room goes so silent so quickly that she wonders if she's gone deaf but that can't be right because she can still hear her heart pounding, can still hear her blood rushing like a freight train in her ears, can still hear—_

wake up. wake up.

_—the echo of her classmates' laughter and they're all just sitting there, laughing at her even though she can't hear them anymore and the prick of claws against her throat turns into a grasping, ripping pull and she chokes on her own blood and it burns so badly where it pools at her feet and—_

wake up. wake up.

_—And Inuyasha is standing in the back of the classroom now and Miroku is beside him and Sango is walking in through the door, is looking at her the same way she looks at Naraku and Kagome can't take that look, and she wants to—_

wake up wake up Wake up

_—run away, she wants to go far, far away where no one will ever be burdened with her again, where she can be alone and she thinks that maybe, if she stands still, the claws will do that for her, maybe if she just stays here, she'll eventually fade away, eventually she'll lose enough blood and—_

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

_—And now Sesshomaru is there, is standing right in front of her, glorious with power and pride and she blinks and he's naked and erect and his eyes are sad sad sad and suddenly those sad eyes go dark with pain and loathing and broken confidence and she hates that look, she hates it hates it hates it and she never wants to see him looking like that, never ever ever and this time she welcomes the burning bite of the claws into her shoulder and—_

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!

_—"You did this to him," the voice whispers, nonchalant despite the fact that the hand that belongs to it continues to maul her, to hurt her, to kill her. "You broke him."—_

Wake up! Wake up!

_—And she can't deny that no matter how much she wishes she could because it's true, isn't it, it's the one thing she knows, deep in her bones, that she can never take back, and blood is still pouring off of her in great red rivulets and she's going to die, isn't she, she's going to die with the sight of a broken Sesshomaru as her last and—_

_—"Wake up," dream-Sesshomaru whispers, and she blinks slowly at him, and then shakes her head as much as she can because she knows that she doesn't deserve to—_

"Wake up! Wake up!"

_—"Wake up," he whispers again, and the walls are beginning to melt, the windows of the classroom bending and bleeding into the sills and dream-Sesshomaru is watching her with his sad eyes and the claws are doing less damage, and she feels strange, like she's forgotten something and—_

"Wake up!"

_—The voice is hissing profanities and the hand is falling away and the room is still melting and her classmates are still laughing even though they're sinking into the pale, shiny gloop that the floor has become, and dream-Sesshomaru reaches for her and his hand is perfect, pale and clawed and flawless and—_

"Wake up!"

_—"Wake up," he murmurs, and she looks between the beauty of his hand and the gruesomeness of his broken eyes and the rest of the room is a morass of flesh-colored swirls and glassy whorls and blood-red pools and then he nods to her and she reaches out and all she has to do is take his hand, all she has to do is—_

"Wake up!"

_—"Wake up. Wake up. Wake—_

"—up!"

She does, quickly and violently and all at once, and she's hardly had the time to struggle out of her sleeping bag before she's retching into the grass, heaving water and bile onto the sun-dappled green.

She's shaking horribly, trembling so badly that she has to reach for her mouth three times before she manages to wipe it, and when she stands her knees feel like they've been replaced with soggy noodles. She snorts at the thought, leaning against a tree at her back, and feels oddly disconnected when she looks down, partially expecting to see pale, overcooked noodle in the spaces where her knees should be.

It isn't there, of course, and so she stares at her pajama pants instead; pale blue fabric covered with fluffy white clouds and cartoonish sleeping suns. There's a speck of red against one thigh, and she reaches, absently, to brush it away, only to feel her gut plummet down to her feet when she catches sight of her hand, covered with blood.

Her stomach surges back up into her throat so quickly that she gags on it, and she examines her hands, and then her forearms, which bear so many gouges that she can hardly see her skin for the blood, with dawning horror. The smell hits her suddenly, thick and metallic and hers, and the darkness in her shivers in the back of her mind, roused by the scent and the pain and the horror she can't stop from leaking into her psyche.

She knows, without a doubt, that _she_ did this, dream-claws notwithstanding. _She_ mauled herself bloody. _She_ —

She viciously smothers the thought, and staggers like a drunkard to the water's edge, feeling the weight of Sesshomaru's gaze like a physical thing. She can't imagine what he must think of her, reduced to a shaking mess over a dream, but she doesn't have the courage to look up and see—to look at him now, with the memory of his dream-self branded into her mind's eye, is something she can't make herself do. Not now.

And so she avoids his gaze, splashing the cool water of the lake onto her arms. It hurts to rub at the wounds but she does it anyway, watching with some morbid sort of fascination as, once clean, the jagged tears begin to heal, the swirling markings on her skin weaving back and forth across the ragged cuts as though sewing them back together. In no time at all, her arms are unblemished, though still tender to the touch, and as she shifts to sit on the grass, closing her eyes in tired resignation.

 _Why me?_ she wonders, not for the first time and probably not for the last, pulling her legs up to her chest and folding her arms around them. The places where she'd cut herself ache, but she has a strange urge to press harder, to force the newly healed skin against the hard bone of her shins until the pain drowns out the remembered terror of her nightmare. _Why do these kinds of things always happen to **me**?_

She can feel the tight ache of sorrow starting in her throat, and now that the adrenaline is beginning to fade she wants nothing more than to give in to it—to wail and scream and cry until she exhausts herself—but she knows that that isn't an option. She knows that she has to be strong, at least for a little while longer.

The thought gives her a surge of boldness, and she lifts her head from her knees and turns, meeting Sesshomaru's gaze for the first time that day. They don't speak, but Kagome knows well enough what he's thinking; can feel his emotions through the Mate-Bond as though they're her own. A lingering tingle of something that feels like concern fades away the longer she looks at him, and is replaced by a calm, steady stream of what can only be labeled as determination.

She isn't sure whether he's deliberately sending it across the Bond or whether he's merely echoing her own determination back at her, but it's reassuring all the same, and Kagome sucks in a breath that only shakes a little on the exhale. She breathes deeply again, more in preparation than to steady herself, and then scoots to her pack and digs for something suitable to wear. The thought of baring her skin makes her stomach roll uncomfortably, so she selects a long-sleeved peasant top and a loose, ankle length skirt. Both are made of lightweight, breathable fabrics and aren't likely to make her pass out from heatstroke, and when she ducks behind a tree to change, they feel good against her skin, soft and cool and, most of all, covering.

Sure that her relief thunders across the Bond, she avoids looking at Sesshomaru when she emerges, knowing that he would hardly appreciate her glancing at him like some skittish colt for an emotion that she couldn't help but feel, and pads on bare feet to where Kagura lies, deeply asleep and undisturbed.

The sorceress' skin only holds a whiff of the infection it had been gathering the night before, and Kagome takes a moment to marvel at what has to be a very advanced immune system. She's never seen any human go sick with infected fever and then be fine after minimal treatment, not even in her own time, and the fact that Kagura is fighting, even subconsciously, feels like a victory. _A small one,_ she concedes, checking over the stitches and bandages, _but a victory nonetheless._

She holds that sense of accomplishment close to her chest as she changes Kagura's dressings and then clothes her in a pair of loose pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that nearly drowns her torso in swathes of fabric. Kagura must have been prisoner for a long time, Kagome thinks as she arranges the collar of the shirt. She hadn't noticed before, too caught up in getting the sorceress out of her bonds and then following Sesshomaru to safety, but now that her thoughts aren't soaked in adrenaline and sorrow, she can clearly see the thin protrusion of Kagura's collarbones; can see the frail outline of her limbs where the fabric of the pajamas fall against her shins and upper arms.

It's a grim sight, made worse by the quickly-fading bruises and the shallow breaths that huff in and out of Kagura's slender nostrils. _At least she's getting better,_ Kagome thinks, and lets that thought brush her misgivings away. Kagura is thin, and battered, and will likely be in no condition, mentally, to deal with anything at all when she wakes up, but she isn't dying any longer, and that's what matters.

Kagome leans back on her haunches, feeling mildly reassured, and looks over to Sesshomaru. He observes her for a long moment, face impassive and eyes a veneer of icy indifference, and then stands in a smooth, economic motion. "Gather your belongings," he says. "We depart."

She nods, and stands, and shoulders both her medicine bag and her overstuffed yellow pack. They feel light despite their weight, and the reminder of her new strength only manages to drive the surety of her change more deeply into her psyche. She's not human, not pure, not a priestess, and no matter what she does, no matter how much she would like to pretend differently, it's not going to change.

Sesshomaru lifts Kagura against his front this time, cradling her against his chest as he stoops to go through the entrance to the valley. Kagome glances over her shoulder as she follows him, takes in the sight of the valley one last time. She might come back here, after nature has had some time to wash away the stench of fear and blood and vomit—maybe when she's more sure of herself, or when Kagura wakes and can appreciate the beauty of it.

The thought steadies her, and she faces forward once more, leaving the last moment of peace (or as close to peace as she's gotten since she woke up) behind.

It isn't until they're in the air once more, only a handful of minutes away from the outskirts of the village, that her nerves jitter uncomfortably beneath her skin. She isn't really ready for this; for meeting her friends again and explaining what's happened to her; for telling them that she can't help them any longer; for telling them that she and Sesshomaru are mated now, irrevocably tied together for the rest of their lifetimes. She's hardly ready to look at them, much less talk to them and let herself hope that they'll still stand by her even after they learn of what she's been through.

Part of her feels horrible for having so little faith in them, but the other part, the part that she's been trying to ignore, whispers that _of course_ she should be cautious; _of course_ she should be ready to sever all ties—or perhaps all heads—because that's the intelligent thing to do. _They'll think you corrupted,_ the Darkness (it deserves the capitalization, she thinks) tells her, stirring and stretching in the back of her mind. _They'll want nothing to do with you now._

It hurts to think that way, but as Kagome watches the landscape pass by beneath them, she wonders if the Darkness is right, even a little. After all, despite the fact that Inuyasha is hanyou and Shippo is full youkai, Sango is and will always be an exterminator, and Miroku is and will always be a monk. It's in their nature to hate youkai; in their nature to want to eradicate them in order to ensure the longevity of the human race. _It won't matter that I was human once,_ she thinks, knowing it and wishing that she didn't. _I'll still be different; **changed**. Still me, but not. And it will be hard for them to accept that, if they do accept it_.

She wants, suddenly and ferociously, to see her mother, and a wave of homesickness washes over her so quickly that she huffs out a surprised breath. Turning her face away so that Sesshomaru doesn't see, she swipes at her tearing eyes with one hand, carefully extracting the other from Kagura's thick hair so she doesn't accidentally pull it. _I can't keep **doing** this!_ Crying at every little thing isn't at all like her; she's _twenty-two_ , for heaven's sake—hardly a child in need of comfort or extra care, and yet here she is, wishing for her mother so badly that her skin aches with it.

Viciously, she shoves the feelings away, pushes down on the pressure building up in her chest. It isn't time to cry yet—it isn't time to think about everything she's lost or the things she'll have five hundred years to wait for. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, she needs to be strong; to channel every stubborn inch of herself into making it through whatever's thrown at her and coming out on top every time.

 _And my first hurdle,_ she thinks as Sesshomaru begins to make their descent, _is talking to my friends._

When they land in the same clearing Sesshomaru had landed in the night before, Kagome frowns. "Why didn't we land closer to the village?"

Sesshomaru slants a glance at her, and sits a few feet away, his aura pulsing further and further out, into the trees, like a beacon. "You would not appreciate the stench," he responds, matter-of-fact and just shy of snide. She wants to disagree with him, to defend humanity, but she knows full well the way that the village sometimes smelled even when she was human, and can't help but feel a little grateful to Sesshomaru for his forethought. _The villagers probably wouldn't recognize me anyway,_ she thinks. _And even if they did, they'd hardly treat me the same._

She busies herself, while they wait, laying Kagura flat on her back and settling her hair, which is longer than Kagome would have expected, over one shoulder. She also pulls a bottle of water from her bag, and a breakfast cereal bar that makes her wrinkle her nose at the crinkle of paper and the strong odor of plastic. The bar itself smells, and tastes, cloyingly sweet, but she doesn't know how long it's been since she's eaten anything, and youkai or not, she needs food even if she doesn't feel particularly hungry.

She's nibbled her way through half of the bar by the time Inuyasha's aura begins to brush at her senses, and she sets the bar aside, what little motivation she'd had to eat it draining away. Her stomach flips and she wipes her hands nervously against her skirt, and before she can make the decision to stand or remain sitting, Inuyasha's silvery head is ducking into the clearing.

Kagome's breath catches.

He doesn't look any different from the night before, but there's a tense air about him that betrays how differently he's feeling. He only glances at her momentarily, sun-yellow eyes flicking over her and then away almost too quickly to catch, and when he steps aside, folding his hands into the sleeves of his robe, the rustling approach of Sango and Miroku jolts Kagome's attention away.

She smells them before she sees them; the oil Sango uses to polish her boomerang mixes with the light odor of sweat and the soap Kagome had given her to bathe with, and Miroku smells of incense and _sake_ and man.

When they come out of the trees, she has a sudden urge to turn away, to hide her face and the markings she can feel swirling at the corners of her eyes and sliding across her cheekbones, but Miroku catches her gaze before she can, and comes to a stop, his violet eyes going wide just as Sango gasps, pausing beside Miroku.

She's suddenly hyper aware of herself—of the markings that are creeping across her eyelids now, shifting with her anxiety; of the perfect, unblemished alabaster of her skin; of the claws at the tips of her fingers and the fangs that sit behind her lips. She feels dirty, contaminated, and the sorrow, and the smothered glimmers of fear sparking to life in Miroku and Sango's eyes only compounds the swirl of self-loathing, because if they already feel sorry for her, how will they feel once they hear her story? Will they hate her then, for destroying Sesshomaru's pride, for allowing someone to take her purity, her power, away from her?

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but her throat has closed so tightly that she only mouths the words. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Her markings are meandering down her cheeks like the tears she won't allow herself to cry, curling at her jaw and down her neck, and when she opens her mouth to apologize again, Sango makes a raw sound in her throat and crosses the space between them so quickly that she's in Kagome's space before she can flinch away. The older woman throws her arms around her and pulls her forward, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other pressing between her shoulderblades.

"Don't _ever_ apologize," the demon slayer says fiercely, voice thick with tears and conviction. "This is Naraku's fault, not yours!"

A whimper edges up out of Kagome's throat before she can stop it, and suddenly she knows that she isn't going to be able to hold any of her grief in any longer. Nearly as soon as she thinks it, her eyes sting painfully with tears, and her breath rasps wetly in her throat. Sango holds her tighter, makes an encouraging, sympathetic noise, and that's all it takes.

Kagome cries; heaves great, gasping sobs that sound as though something inside of her has broken into pieces. Time loses all meaning, and what little coherent thought she'd been entertaining before gets washed away in the face of her tears.

She cries for herself, for her mother, for Sesshomaru. She cries because she needs to; cries because her friends haven't abandoned her; cries because Sango tells her that it's alright; because Miroku lays a hand on her shoulder in solid, silent support; because she can feel Shippo burrowing into her lap, tiny claws twisting into the fabric of her shirt; because Kirara is pressed warmly at the small of her back, the vibrations of her purrs soothing and constant. She cries and cries and cries until she can't cry any longer; until her tears have dried up and she's hiccupping from exertion and her insides feel as though someone has scooped them out with a spoon.

Sango doesn't let her go, and even when she's finished, the slayer only pulls away enough to peer at her face, cool fingers swiping at the tears on her flushed cheeks. "There," she whispers after a moment, over the sound of Kagome's breaths hitching in the quiet. "You're alright. It's alright." Miroku's hand tightens in agreement, a comfort to Kagome's shaken nerves.

She nods, jerkily, and then uncurls her fingers, claws slipping painfully out of where they've pierced her skin. Shippo's small hands catch one of hers, and when she looks down at him, he's wiping at the blood on her fingers with one corner of his sleeve, turquoise eyes grim and determined.

She loves him, loves _all_ of them, then, with a ferocity that almost surprises her. Sango, with her dogged attitude and sisterly affection; Miroku, calm and steady and wise; Shippo, happy and loyal; and Inuyasha—

Inuyasha who stands only a step closer than before, hands still in his sleeves, eyes locked unerringly on their huddle. He's stiff, unmoving, and she can see even from where she is that he's doing everything he can to stay where he is. Even his aura is hard, like concrete over steel, and he smells of something that smacks of helplessness and rage and sorrow. She wants to go to him, wants to wrap her arms around him and soothe his hurt, and even though she wouldn't dare, not with the Mate-Bond rebelling at the very _idea_ of it, she lets it show on her face and in her eyes, catching and holding his gaze.

For a long moment, he only looks at her, and then, slowly, he lowers his head until his bangs are covering his face. He doesn't cry—he wouldn't, not with all of them there to witness it—but his shoulders tremble all the same, and when he looks up again, his eyes are bright with the kind of stubborn determination only he can pull off.

When he moves, it's with slow, halting footsteps that grow surer with each stride, and when he crouches beside Sango, his mouth is set in the line she's seen plenty of times before; the line that says _I've made up my mind and you aren't going to change it no matter what you do_. He doesn't speak, doesn't reach for her, but he does nod, once, and the fact that he's there means more to her than any words could have—the fact that they're all there, supportive, means more than anything.

Hands trembling, she pats Shippo's soft hair, strokes his cheeks with careful fingers; reaches for Miroku's hand despite the power that sparks against her skin when she touches him; lays her forehead on Sango's shoulder and sighs, relieved when the slayer still doesn't pull away. The moment lasts for long seconds, and for those seconds, Kagome feels at peace with herself, safe and comfortable surrounded by her friends, who love her and who will always love her, who will let her be who she is, now, without condemning her unnecessarily.

It's Rin and Jaken's arrivals that break the silence, and when the girl comes traipsing out of the trees, Ah-Un's reins clasped in one hand and Jaken squawking something at her about waiting for him, she takes one look at Sesshomaru and bursts into laughter, releasing the dragon's tethers and skipping to where he sits. It's obvious that she's delighted to see him, and although she's fifteen now, a woman by the era's standards, her childish joy is a beautiful thing to behold.

Almost as though sensing Kagome's thoughts, Rin turns, and flashes a bright smile in her direction. She doesn't look or smell surprised at seeing Kagome so changed, and the flowers-and-sunlight scent of her happiness doesn't dim in the slightest as she lifts one slender hand and waves. She doesn't wait for Kagome to wave back, but twirls back to face Sesshomaru and launches into an animated tale of what she'd been up to while he was gone.

Across their Bond, Kagome feels a sliver of fondness seep into the careful nothingness that Sesshomaru's emotions had become when she'd lost herself in her tears. The emotion warms her cold insides, fills the emptiness with something that almost feels like hope, because if Sesshomaru can be so fond of his ward, then perhaps he can learn to feel fond of Kagome, too. _Perhaps,_ she thinks, _we can learn to feel fond of each other._

She holds that thought close to her, and wobbles a watery smile at Sango. "Okay," she says, while Rin chatters in the background, laughing at Jaken. "I'm ready to talk now."

And she does.

Slowly, starting and stopping, whispering, she talks.

It's hard to tell the story as she remembers it; hard to have to glance at Sesshomaru before she tells of their encounter, to get permission that she knows he doesn't want to give her; hard to watch Sango's cinnamon-brown eyes go liquid with empathy and understanding; hard to watch Miroku's hands clench in his lap, his jaw tight with anger on her behalf; hard to listen to Shippo—who, though young, fully understands every word she says—whimper and whine; hard to watch Inuyasha go stiff with an anger that makes his aura go sharp around him.

And the hardest thing of all, the thing that makes her chest ache, is knowing that after this, everything is going to change even more.

After this, her new life is going to begin, and there's nothing she can do to stop it.

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**End Note:** _  
_  


_This chapter fought with me the entire time I was writing it, but I think the next one will come easier, so hopefully it won't take me so long to update._

_As for the results of last chapter's poll, the staggering amount of responses have assured that the final pairing will be solely Sesshomaru/Kagome._

_Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!_

****~Aubrey** **

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